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After years of sluggish sales, the market for electric vehicles has surged in recent months in response to an escalating price war among automakers that has helped reduce the high up-front costs that have slowed the emerging EV sector. Since Nissan reduced the price of its electric Leaf by $6,400 to $19,000 earlier this year — a move that tripled sales of the car compared with the same time period last year — competitors such as Chevy, Fiat, Mitsubishi, Honda, and Toyota have responded with similar low-cost deals and buyer incentives, Time magazine reports. Within days of cutting the lease price for its Fit EV from $389 per month to $259 per month, Honda dealerships in California sold every model of the EV, forcing the automaker to apologize to customers who were then placed on a waiting list. After seeing no growth in sales for its electric Volt in recent months, Chevy last week offered a $5,000 cash back incentive. But while the price war is driving EV sales and boosting consumer interest in the emerging green technologies, it remains unclear whether it will be good for business in the long term. Chrysler, which owns Fiat, reported earlier this year that the company loses $10,000 for each Fiat 500e EV it sells.

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The Warriors of Qiugang, a Yale Environment 360 video, chronicles a Chinese village’s fight against a polluting chemical plant. It was nominated for a 2011 Academy Award for Best Documentary Short.
Watch the video.